Personal Jesus
by Muffytaj
Summary: Itachi captures Sakura in order to get at Sasuke: what will happen? Warning: not for the kiddies!


**Personal Jesus**

"Why?"

"As a test of my strength."

He started the whole-sale slaughter without warning: at first the shinobi around him thought he was under control, and then they thought nothing. At first they aimed to disable, not to destroy, until they aimed not at all.

The fighters made it easy for him to kill them: they jumped right at him, the chunks of flesh falling to the ground a moment later all that was left of their killing intent. The civilians made it a bit harder: they hid, and ran, and crouched in secret hidey-holes, staring at him in almost bemused horror, faces distorted with terror as they screamed "Please, not my baby, please, spare him! Please, take me instead! _I beg of you!_"

He took them all anyway, and continued his methodical search of the compound.

All his life he had heard dying screams, and if the ones he plucked from his victims here were a little higher than usual, no matter.

But the screams of his little brother amused him, somewhat. The cries of someone who wanted to live, no matter how shamefully, would have disgusted their father, but Itachi displayed his indulgence to his baby brother.

He let him live, and showed him how much worse life could be than the alternative.

His little brother exasperated him, in the tradition of all elder brothers throughout time, although in Itachi's case it was his utter inability to pose even a slight threat. Sasuke had so much potential, if only he would properly apply himself.

So, naturally, Itachi took a moment or two out of his busy schedule to try and help his (self-inflicted) only living relative. The problem was that Sasuke lacked motivation, and this Itachi gave him in spades.

He broke him, in more ways than one, and was annoyed to see that Sasuke failed to take the shards of himself and fashion a suitable weapon out of them. A few years passed, and still Sasuke remained as weak and blunt as ever. He had betrayed his village and left, true, but didn't appear to have done much beyond that.

How annoying.

Itachi met up with his old companions by chance, and discovered that they still cared about Sasuke as strongly – if not more so – than the last time they had met. The way the girl caressed the boy's name in her mouth gave Itachi a few moments of amusement; it seemed fitting that the weak should lust after the weak.

Kisame made a passing remark the next day about Sasuke attempting to re-build his clan with the girl, and the Kyuubi-vessel looking like he was ready to join in, and that casual remark set off in Itachi another idea of how to try and help his little brother along his path to power, and hopefully garner Kyuubi as well.

So he kidnapped the pink girl. It wasn't very difficult, after all, especially since she was out on the planes with three men – they gave her a bit of distance for privacy. The only one who would have posed any real threat – Kakashi – appeared to be missing.

And he waited. Soon the Kyuubi should come rampaging after this girl, and the fact that Itachi had taken down two of his old companions should break Sasuke of his annoying habit of loving people.

He had attempted to be polite to the pink girl at first, after all her co-operation would make things go a lot easier, but she just screamed and kicked and swore at him until he sighed and gave up.

The snap her neck made as he broke it did little to improve his mood.

Naruto turned up, of course, with his two new team mates in tow, but the sight of the pink girl's limp body and the odd angle of her neck simply made him almost completely morph into Kyuubi, and if Kisame hadn't been on hand to pull Itachi out and lead the escape, Itachi might have ended his career right there and then.

As it was, it took a few days for him to recover.

His bad mood at the misfiring of his attempt to mix his personal and professional life took a little longer to wear off, but the news that Sasuke had somehow heard about the pink girl's death at Itachi's hands and had gone on a murderous rampage the likes of which had not been seen since, well, Itachi's one, pleased him considerably.

It seemed like everything would work out well in the end anyway.

How nice.


End file.
